Haunt
by badriddance
Summary: It's someone else's turn to be haunted by a girl they couldn't save. Written for a random halloween challenge on the KM. Horrors from both the living and the dead walk and sometimes go looking for help.
1. Chapter 1

He woke up shivering. Had the furnace gone out? His eyes opened, blinked twice, and there was someone standing in front of them. His first jolt of adrenaline was tentative. He expected it to be Rorschach when his vision cleared, but it wasn't.

Fear jolted him back against his headboard. A stranger had made it into his house. At first all he could see was the eyes, wide and brown and so horrified they might as well be mirrors of his own. It was a girl, wild-haired, naked and filthy, with blood slicked down both sides of her neck. Recollection stirred. He had seen her before.

She pointed, wildly, dramatically at his door. He couldn't help but look just as quickly and then she was gone and he was left panting in the darkness by himself. Maybe it had been a nightmare. He hadn't woken up gulping and shaking like this since he had been a child and dreaming of falling. He huddled under his blankets, wishing that Rorschach would suddenly appear and give him something tangible to jump at. Then again, he was glad no one could see him this frightened.

When he got his adrenaline back under control, he was able to remember where he had seen her. _Like he could forget_, he chided himself. Rorschach had found her on patrol the night before. The shape of a bundle of plastic in a pile of garbage had caught his eye and he had stared at it for a full two minutes, ignoring Dan's questions. He had walked over and pulled, making it unroll like a red carpet from hell, and she had spilled out at their feet. There were lines cut into her wrists and ankles where she had been bound and both her eardrums had been punctured by something, probably an ice pick. It wasn't clear if that had killed her, but she was clearly dead. She looked maybe seventeen, still a little gawky, and unremarkable except for her long hair.

There had been no clues they could find at the site. Dan had wrapped her in his cape and they had called the police. Rorschach had fumed in silence for the rest of the night and hadn't shown up tonight. Dan assumed he was leaving a trail of snapped joints out there, seeing who knew what about a missing teenager. He had patrolled by himself until about 2 and turned in. It was almost 5 now, still a ways until sun up, and he didn't move from the bed until light spilled in through the window.

The room had warmed up by then, so he ventured out. He went downstairs and found Rorschach collapsed on his couch. Aha. That was it. He had heard his partner come in and his brain had processed it without waking him up, and thinking of Rorschach had triggered the memory of their last patrol, and had brought up the horrific image of the poor dead girl to loom over him. He shuffled off to make breakfast, relieved to have an explanation, and wishing it was enough to shake the chill out of his bones.

The smell of coffee and broiler-made cinnamon toast lured Rorschach back to the land of the awoken, but just barely. He answered all questions with grunts in various pitches and left covered in cinnamon/sugar dust. Dan caught a few more hours of sleep, then spent the rest of the day replacing his cape and listening to police reports to see if there were any updates. There weren't, but there was mention of a local hood with his wrist bent all the back in a local hospital. Dan had to grin.

Rorschach showed up at nightfall. They went out the darkness, following blood trails. Rorschach had found out that the plastic was a cheap tarp, sold in every hardware store, often used by movers or painters. No way to track that, but they did break up a mugging and thwart a hold up. Then things got interesting. There was a gang fight that spilled over into a dance club that turned into a hostage situation that turned into a brawl as soon as Rorschach came through the skylight. They fought back to back for what felt like hours, against gang members, bouncers, and the occasional scrappy-drunk patron.

Back in Archie, they collapsed in their chairs and got home on autopilot. They were both exhausted and both dozed in there for a moment after landing, too battered and beaten to want to move. Eventually though, Dan heard Rorschach get up and knew he would have to try too. His eyes bleary through the goggles, he saw his partner's silhouette pass by the yellow window to lean over him. He hoped he hadn't been drooling. He shifted, starting to sit up and offer a drink, but then the shadow's arm shot up to violently point to the left. Dan looked, alarmed, and there, still snoozing in the chair was Rorschach. Dan's head jerked back quickly enough to get glimpse of a scrawny body and long brown hair and then it was gone again.


	2. Chapter 2

The sound he made woke Rorschach up, and if he hadn't been so rattled, Dan might've enjoyed seeing him pretend that he hadn't been asleep.

"All right?" Rorschach asked.

"Nightmare," he admitted. "Again." Rorschach was silent, but Dan could feel his attention. The blots blurred into two trickles down each side, like the blood from her ears. "Why do you think he busted out her eardrums?"

"He?" Rorschach's head tilted. "You know something I don't?" It wasn't really a question. "Could've been anyone. Could've been her own mother." Dan winced and slid his fingers under his goggles to rub his eyes. He knew better than to argue. People really were capable of anything, but didn't that mean that they were capable of good too? Not often enough apparently.

"Did you get anything worthwhile from the Terrace kid?" he asked to change the subject.

"Insults," Rorschach said shrugging. Dan squinted at him, quickly going through the list of jibes that would inspire a bone breaking like the kid had gotten.

"He called you a limp wrist, didn't he?" he asked, fighting back the grin. Rorschach shrugged again.

"Sticks and stones," he said, and opened the hatch. The thought of being left alone with the persistent ghost of a dead girl, even if it was just a dream, sent Dan hurrying after him.

"Hey, look, we're both groggy," he said. "Come on up. You can stay here again tonight." Rorschach gave him another calculating stare that slowly took the shape of a jolly roger with a rooster crest. He had the feeling that he had just given away a weakness and tried not to blather an incriminating explanation. Best defense was a good offense though. "I know you were asleep in there too. Don't want you walking the streets without your full vigilance."

"Hnh," Rorschach said. Dan couldn't tell if he was amused or belligerent, but he started up the stairs. "If it'll keep you from sleeping with all the lights on." he muttered. Dan winced again, but was relieved anyway. They sat on the couch and talked for a bit, then Rorschach kicked off his shoes and Dan took the hint and went upstairs.

He was asleep in no time, but couldn't get warm enough. He rolled over and slammed awake when his nose touched someone else's. The girl was back, in bed with him this time, still staring at him like a cavefish, and pointing at the door. If he didn't look away, she didn't disappear and they were caught in a stare down that was sending Dan's heart rate skittering out of control. He couldn't stand it. He was going to have some sort of attack if he didn't break the gaze somehow. Without looking away from her, he inched around the bed and went to the door. Her stricken expression never changed. When he got to the door, he was able to pull his eyes away to see what she was pointing at.

She was there too, staring at him from the bottom of his stairs this time. He jumped, jerking back inside his room on reflex. She was gone from his bedside and when he was able to bring himself to look again, also gone from the stairs. He slid down to sit in his floor, feeling rubbery and sick. Years of fighting evil on the streets and a girl on his stairs was the first thing to ever make him faint? Please, no.

She had still been pointing, he realized, this time towards his front door. What did she want to show him? Where was she leading him too??

"Timmy's in the well," he whispered and then burst into hysterical giggles that sounded a little too much like sobs. He choked them back and heard a footstep on the stair. He was not going to look this time. He wasn't sure he could take another scare. Another step came. And another. And another, until the cautious, ready to pounce or dodge figure of Rorschach peered around the doorframe at him.

"Daniel?" he asked. There was enough uncertainty there to remind Dan of how he must look sprawled on the floor, shivering in a cold sweat. "You're sick?"

"Rorschach," Dan said conversationally. "Do you believe in ghosts?"


	3. Chapter 3

Rorschach hadn't wanted to leave him like that, but hadn't been able to help either. Eventually, he had had to leave, to wherever he went in the day, but he waited until Dan was up and dressed and holding a mug of coffee before he went.

Dan sat in his chair all day, watching the stairs. The coffee went cold, and when his hand started to cramp, he set it down. The radio was on, and a new report said that the body of a missing girl had been identified, but there were no leads on her killing. It went on to some sports event and Dan's attention faded off it again. His stomach growled, but he had no appetite. Sometime near evening, he must've dozed because when the chill made him shiver awake again, the room was dark, and cold eyes were on him.

There at the foot of the stairs stood the girl, hair to her waist, and one scarred arm pointing at his door. Her eyes were frozen in the same look of horror as her body had when they found it. They stared holes through him. Vanessa was her name, the report had said, and he tried to say it. She didn't respond. He got up, knees buckling as blood started to move in his legs again. He went to the door and opened it.

She stood there, nakedness a hundred times more horrible against the street, on the sidewalk in front of his door. Her arm was still held out, pointing across the street to the opposite corner.

"All right," Dan said and he stepped out to walk that way. He stopped at the corner, still shivering and wishing he had brought a jacket. He looked back and realized he had left his door wide open, but wasn't able to go back to close it. Rorschach would be a long soon. That would get him a lecture, but then something white caught his eye and the girl was staring at him from down the street, nearly two blocks away, but still close enough that he could feel her chill. She pointed again, and he started to follow.

She lead him for what had to be miles through alleys and around corners. He didn't know how long he had been walking until the sun started to rise. It was just a welling of color along the horizon, like golden blood from slit gray skin, but it meant that he had been walking all night long. His feet were throbbing and he became aware of the blisters he now had. She was still there, fading fast in the pale light, but pointing at a nondescript little house in a boring little yard.

_Where was he? _He had no idea, but in that house was the answer. Unless he was still dreaming, or crazy as a bed bug. They both stood there, the exhausted living man standing like a zombie on the street corner, and the dead girl on the opposite side. The sun rose higher as she pointed, and suddenly the front door flew open. A man, he noticed with some satisfaction (see? I did know something you didn't) as ordinary as the house and yard, walked out and drove away.

This was perfect. He could go in and have a look and hopefully put an end to this, and then he could use the guy's phone to call a cab. He started forward, but was grabbed swiftly and ruthlessly, and spun to have his back slammed against the street lamp. He was too tired and dazed to even fight back and just blinked stupidly into Rorschach's rapidly shifting mask. Rorschach was breathing hard, but whether from wrath or exertion, he had no idea.

"Lost your mind??" Rorschach hissed. "Door wide open! All lights on! Radio blaring! Had to ask every pedestrian for last 30 miles if they'd seen you! Brought your civilian identity to who knows how much attention! Tracked you! All! Night!" Anyone else would probably have been swearing at him. "What is WRONG with you??"

"It happened there," Dan said, nodding towards the house. He didn't want to point. That would be creepy. "I think the killer just left."

Rorschach exhaled hard three times and then looked over his shoulder at the little yellow house. He looked back at Dan. Vanessa was no longer in sight, and the sun was much higher. Other people were coming out and getting into cars and Rorschach let go of Dan so as not to attract any more attention. He made a frustrated sound and then his finger jabbed at Dan's nose.

"Knock on door. Keep knocking. Should bring out anyone else inside," he said. "I'll go in the back and let you in. Anyone watching will think the family opened the door."

"Ok," Dan said, and started across without even looking, but luckily the only car was heading the opposite way. Rorschach was still grumbling, but he went around a different way. The back door was locked tight and padlocked from the inside, so he broke a window and unlocked it. He could hear the rapping from the front door and crawled in quickly. The house was yellow on the inside too, like false sunshine. How did it not give whoever lived here headaches?

He opened the front door and Dan stepped in. His tired eyes squinted at the yellow too, but widened again at something he saw. Rorschach looked and saw only an empty doorway to a kitchen, but Dan hurried over as if beckoned. The kitchen was small and narrow and a slightly greener yellow than the rest. There was also a door with three deadbolts and a padlock. Dan looked at it a moment, then let his stare follow something else Rorschach couldn't see that landed on a tin sugar canister with a picture of a cocker spaniel on the side of it. He went to it and pulled out a handful of keys.

Rorschach watched as he went through them all and unlocked each lock. If a ghost wasn't talking to him, his deductive reasoning was vastly improved by sleep deprivation. The door opened to a flight of stairs leading down into the basement. Faint sounds came from the darkness down there, and a smell like mild sewage and strong suffering. Dan started down them as if he had his night vision goggles, but Rorschach felt around until he found the light switch and flicked it on.

The light was weak and yellow too, and revealed a table with restraints attached to it, shelves of things that didn't bear close examination, and three large reinforced kennels against the far wall. In the first and last kennels were two naked children. They had cringed at the light, pupils contracting painfully. The noise came from the last one. Her hair was long and tangled and matted with blood over each ear. She rocked and swayed and whimpered and bit into her own finger when she saw them.

"Who are you?" the first one asked. She was cautious, not going to ask for help until she was sure they were going to give it. There was the cold calculation of someone determined to survive by any means necessary in her expression. She needn't have worried. Dan was already grappling with her cage locks. Rorschach after a moment of frozen horror, hurried to the other one.

"That was Vanessa's cage wasn't it?" he asked, nodding to the middle one.

"We're not supposed to try to get out," she said, eyeing the lock like a starving dog would a roast turkey.

"He's not in charge anymore," Dan said. He nodded at the third cage where the deafened girl cowered obediently when Rorschach raised his foot to smash the hinges. "What happened to her ears?"

"We aren't allowed to talk to each other," the girl whispered. "But we had to! It was dark and we were scared. Vanessa would sing and one day he heard her. He put out Angie's ears and Vanessa's and would've done mine, so we couldn't hear each other, but she fought him and he stabbed too hard and she died. He didn't mean to!" she added when Rorschach hissed. "He swore it was an accident!"

"And it kept him from doing yours," Dan added. She nodded, far beyond being ashamed of it. There was a crash and the third kennel was kicked in. Dan finally found the right key and let the first out.

"Do we call the police," he asked Rorschach. "Or wait for Daddy to come home?"

The gleam that came with that remark was out of character enough for Dan that Rorschach snapped at him. They argued while the children watched. Dan was in no shape to fight, Rorschach reminded him. The police would need to see this place, Dan insisted. Only way to be sure he was punished was to do it themselves, Rorschach added. The deaf girl was the younger of the two, looking maybe thirteen. Dan had given her an afghan (also yellow)from an armchair to wrap in. The older one was still quiet and shrewd and who would ever know how much of her soul it had cost her to be so analytical of her own survival?

There was a suit jacket in the foyer closet that they gave her. Dan saw her sniff it and hug herself with it on. He felt a sick lurch at the thought that she might have some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, might have been so cautious because she hadn't wanted to be rescued. She certainly wasn't being nurturing to the younger girl, had made no move to hug or hold her hand as he would've expected two survivors to do. And for her part, the younger girl was content to clutch the afghan around herself and shadow Rorschach.

"What time does he come home?" he asked the other girl. She shrugged.

"We never had a clock," she said. "And sometimes we could hear him upstairs, but he might not come down."

"What's your name?" Rorschach asked next. She shrugged, looking sullen. His voice dropped dangerously. "Damaged too badly to remember, should go straight to psych ward."

Alarm flickered in her eyes, so she looked at her own feet. She muttered something Dan couldn't quite make out, but Rorschach nodded and made up his mind. He left Dan on the couch and took the children to a pay phone with some mail he found to make sure they had the address. Dan took a moment to rest on the bilious couch. Was the bastard color-blind as well as a monster? Maybe all the yellow was what had driven him crazy. Not that Dan was winning any sanity awards at the moment. As if summoned by the thought, he became aware of someone sitting next to him.

"You three weren't the first were you?" he asked without looking. "But you'll be the last." Cold engulfed him like an impulsive, icy hug. His head swam a little. _Would it be better to let Rorschach kill this guy? Leave his body crammed into his own kennel? Ice picks forced into his own ears so he couldn't hear his own screams? _It felt like the breath was being squeezed out of him, and the next thing he knew he was being shaken while a voice like sandpaper scoured across his addled senses.

"Time to go," Rorschach was saying. "Officers with children, coming to search house. They know it was me that called, but if they see you, they'll make assumptions and may guess right. Up. Now."

Dan grunted but reluctantly struggled back to his feet. He was swaying, so Rorschach slid an arm around his waist to hurry him out the back. They went over the fence and cut through a yard dominated by patio furniture. Dan was alarmingly cold, Rorschach noticed. Hopefully, if no one got a good look, they'd appear to be drunken revelers on the way home. It was a bit galling, but better than the alternative.

"You never did answer my question," Dan said once they were out of sight of the house. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

There was a very long pause as the blots contracted to the center of his face like a laser sight homing in, then spread out again.

"Believe in being haunted," Rorschach finally said. The sun was high in the sky now, but the shadows in the alleys were still dark enough to hide them. Behind them, lights flashed and a siren chirped, and voices shouted into radio handsets and a deaf girl who couldn't hear any of it began to cry when she saw a faint shape appear in the reflections on the police squad car window. It left a handprint in cold mist on the glass and then faded away for good.


End file.
